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Saturday, April 06, 2019

The need to identify and share teacher expertise

Educational Readings

6th April 2019

The need to identify and share teacher expertise

We’ve always believed that the real experts in
education are those that actually do it. Obviously such teachers gain support
from those distant from the classroom but if it doesn’t happen in the

classroom
it doesn’t happen. And I also believe the further experts are away from the
classroom the easier it is to give advice.

A long time ago, before the introduction of
self-managing schools, there were plenty of opportunities for schools to
collaborate. Teachers were chosen to attend and contribute to national and
local in-service courses.

Today the focus in on our school not our schools.

In the last year or so an attempt was made to introduce a community of schools
approach but all too often this was simply a means to introduce Ministry
dictates such as National Standards. It

was, at least, a start to move to more
collaborative environment.

The Tomorrow’s School Review has at its core the
idea of hubs which would introduce the idea of our schools rather than
our school. Time will tell if this eventuates but one idea regional principals
groups could do is to identify teachers with recognised, expertise in local schools and to share this expertise by means of a website with all schools in
the area. There may be schools with beginning teachers coping well that other
beginning

teachers could visit; there might be teachers with expertise in the
creative arts, technology, physical education, mathematics science, inquiry
learning, integrated studies, and play based approaches to learning etc.

There may be the need to select
principals/teachers to act as an organising committee and a need also to employ
a person with

website development skills.

Something along these lines would not only
enable the sharing of ideas between schools but also to return teachers
expertise central to educational development.

Bruce Hammonds

Allan Alach

Last week we shared readings both for and
against the ideas included in the Tomorrows School Review.

I’m a school principal – here’s why I support
the Tomorrow’s Schools changes

‘The independent taskforce report on Tomorrow’s
Schools recommends big changes to school governance, and a lot of principals
are up in arms. Auckland high school principal Claire Amos explains why she’s
not one of them.’

The Art of Looking: Eleven Ways of Viewing
the Multiple Realities of Our Everyday Wonderland

‘An
invitation to the art of observation: Together, we became investigators of the
ordinary, considering the block — the street and everything on it—as a living
being that could be observed.In this way, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, and
the old the new.’

‘We often think of drawing as something that
takes innate talent, but this kind of thinking stems from our misclassification
of drawing as, primarily, an art form rather than a tool for
learning.Researchers, teachers, and artists are starting to see how drawing can
positively impact a wide variety of skills and disciplines.Drawing is not an
innate gift; rather, it can be taught and developed. Doing so helps people to
perceive the world more accurately, remember facts better, and understand their
world from a new perspective.’

How to Teach Students Historical Inquiry
Through Media Literacy And Critical Thinking

‘Today,
most people look up information they don’t know on the internet, including
students. So it’s even more important that students have tools they can use to
make educated decisions about what they trust online.’

‘Learner
agency is about having the power, combined with choices, to take meaningful
action and see the results of your decisions. It can be thought of as a
catalyst for change or transformation. Within a school context, Learner Agency
is about shifting the ownership of learning from teachers to students, enabling
students to have the understanding, ability, and opportunity to be part of the
learning design and to take action to intervene in the learning process, to
affect outcomes and become powerful lifelong learners.’

“…all our problems tend to gather under two
questions about knowledge: Having the ability and desire to know, how and what
should we learn? And, having learned, how and for what should we use what we
know?”

International Women's Day: What factors are
at play when girls are excluded from mathematics?Jo Boaler:

‘In a recent survey National Numeracy asked a
sample of adults

how they felt about maths. This showed that more than twice
the proportion of women (30%) than men (14%) said that maths made them feel
uneasy. Why might this serious gender disparity exist – even in the 21st
century?'

'Every student brings with them memories and ideas gained from the experiences they have had. All too often this personal form of motivation is overlooked by teachers who seem to think they have better ideas to use - their own. It is as
if students come to school as blank slates ( tabula rosa) when instead they
come with a wealth of ideas to share but to do their ideas need to be valued.’

‘Drawing
is an ideal way to break through habitual ways of thinking. All too often our students
see but they do not look. Observational drawing has long been an important
means for some teachers to develop deeper consciousness in students - to assist
students see through their habitual ways of seeing and to develop new
awareness.’